


To Lose A Son

by navaan



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Family, Ficlet, Gen, Hope, Loss, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:32:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is faced with Jason's return from the grave and finds that maybe he does not have to abandon hope after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Lose A Son

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to [](http://proxypromethea.livejournal.com/profile)[**proxypromethea**](http://proxypromethea.livejournal.com/) for beta reading!

He had learned the hard way what it meant for a child to lose both parents. It was something he could – and _would_ – never forget. Their loss was what drove him to do the things he did every day and most importantly every night. No child should witness the violent death of both parents. It left scars that would never heal.

He was living proof of that.

But then, no parent should have to witness the death of a loved child either. A father should not have to watch his son die before his time.

He'd had to bury his parents when he'd been much too young to cope with the horror of what he’d seen that night. It had taken him years to find his own special way of dealing with his trauma, even if he would probably never work _through_ it. But then he had buried Jason after years of trying to teach him about right and wrong - and about family. And Jason had only just started to understand that they _were_ in fact family – that he had finally found a place in life.

Bruce had lost his parents. Then he had lost a _son_.

Again, moving on had been the only option. After all the life he'd chosen for himself all those years ago had taken Jason from him. The knowledge of his own guilt was never far from his thoughts. A burden that was wearing him down at times, a heavy thought that came up whenever he watched Tim in quiet moments.

Fate had been cruel to make him lose so much.

But back then he'd had no idea that fate could, in fact, be even more cruel.

No parent should have to witness the death of a loved child. But then no parent should have to watch their son come back from the dead to unleash his own kind of evil justice on the world –on the city he once had helped to protect.

It was a lesson Bruce could have lived without.

And yet there was something else to be learned.

“You could have killed him, Jason,” he said in what he hoped passed for a menacing growl and not the disappointed voice of a father. There was no room for the father when he was supposed to be Batman, focused and relentless. He was thinking of Dick. Dick, who had been nearly killed in Jason's last attempt to “clean up” Gotham.

“You can't blame me for this. He _never_ ever shuts up. I had to make him.” Jason voice was a pitch higher than usual and a little breathless. It could be read as elation at his latest feat, but the nervous gestures he was making with his hands told Batman something else entirely.

“He's alright by the way.”

Jason's arms fell to his sides and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Why would I care?” he asked. Angry, dismissive, trying for indifference.

“Why _wouldn't_ you?” _He's your brother._ He didn't have to say it.

Not surprisingly there was no answer from Jason, just a slight freezing up of muscles, a tightening of the shoulders, all relaxation gone in an instant.

For the untrained eye it would be hard to see the change in his posture. But Batman, ever ready to adapt to whatever life threw at him, was learning from this. Now only Jason had to understand what was driving him, too.

Death did not sever family ties.

He vanished into the shadow. Jason kept staring at the spot where he had been standing just a second ago, hands balling into fist. He must be thinking Bruce had left. Gone over the rooftops the way he always just vanished into the night. If Jason hadn't been sure to be alone, he would never have whispered the next words, and not in an distressed voice. “He's all right, though, is he? He's always all right.”

Maybe there was hope for all of them.

Because it seemed Jason did not _really_ want his brother dead.

Bruce could only hope that this wouldn't change, when the thin connection Jason still felt with his family would break, when one day he may be feeling he had finally burned all bridges behind him.

It had been hard to lose a son. It was hard to watch one slip away. But he had no intention of losing this one easily. He had lost enough to know that sometimes you had to hold on when you got the chance.  



End file.
